Sanctuary

by Jennifer McKissack

  LATER IN THE MORNING, THE SMELL OF BAKING COOKIES REACHED THE library, making it hard to concentrate on my reading. I left quickly, before Mr. Bauer could say anything to me. I didn’t know what to do about him yet.

  I froze in the doorway. Uncle was sitting in his chair at the head of the table. Ben was there, in front of the hearth, with Anna hovering over him. When she moved, I saw that he was holding a wrapped wedge of ice over his right eye.

  “What happened?!” I exclaimed, taking in Ben’s look of shame and Anna’s fearful one. I shot a glance at Uncle.

  A pleased grin split Uncle’s face, which made my stomach feel sick. Ben kept the wrapped ice on his face, not looking at me. Anna went to the sink. Uncle’s smile faded, and he took one of the cookies off a plate set before him, eating it quietly.

  “Ben?” I pressed.

  “A father can punish his own son,” Uncle said, turning to look at Ben, “especially when he’s an idiot. Taking a perfectly good window frame apart!”

  “I thought you said the wood joint was rotted,” Ben explained.

  “Not on that window! And then you spent all morning on it, a simple task, and now I have to put it back together.” He mumbled something I couldn’t hear. Then: “Not from my side of the family.”

  “I’m sorry, Papa,” Ben said, pulling at his collar, letting the rag of ice slip a little, showing his swollen red eye. His tongue went to the corner of his mouth.

  “Don’t apologize to him,” I said.

  “I can discipline my own son!” Uncle shouted at me with such hatred I trembled inside at what he might do. He stared at Ben now. “Put your tongue back in your mouth, boy! No one wants to see your ugly tongue!”

  Anna started to slip out the back door, a hatchet in one hand, the other on the knob. The door cracked open, when Uncle barked at her, “Where are you going?”

  She looked back over her shoulder as she explained, “I have to get one of the chickens for our supper.” She stood there, waiting for Uncle’s reply.

  Uncle reached down, scooping up Jasper, who yelped as he was captured. Startled, I shot toward him, but Uncle held him away from me. The poor thing immediately went limp in Uncle’s arms, knowing not to fight the beast. Uncle held the dog firmly, his hand resting on Jasper’s back. “Cecilia will kill a chicken for our dinner.”

  “What?” I asked in disbelief.

  I watched his hands on Jasper and reached for the dog again, but Uncle held him tightly. “You’re too soft. You care too much about them all,” he said. “That’s your weakness. Ha!”

  I was frozen in place, thinking about what to do. Jasper looked at me with his soft, timid eyes. Uncle didn’t pet him, just held him firmly so he couldn’t move.

  “I’ll kill the chicken,” Ben said.

  “You won’t either,” Uncle growled. “And if I find you have, I’ll be taking out that other eye,” he added dramatically, as if he were a king and this his castle.

  I grabbed the hatchet from Anna and went past her through the door, leaving the scene behind me, heading for the henhouse. Tess and I had spent a lot of time around the chickens.

  When I came into the yard, hidden from the house by trees, the chickens looked at me, or so it seemed. I hid the ax behind a large island oak outside the wire fence and then went in, watching them strut around on their big claws, scratching in the dirt.

  It was a heartless task, picking out one for slaughter.

  Walking quickly, sending the flock squawking and flapping, I swooped one up by her leg. After she tussled for a minute, she calmed down, hanging there limp and sad. I pulled her up and tucked her under my arm, trying to be gentle and talking to her as if I wasn’t going to hurt her.

  Ben was waiting for me. He led me toward a bloodstained stump.

  “I’ll do it for you if you want,” he said bravely, the area around his eye an angry red. He’d have a black eye by morning.

  I studied him, petting the chicken to keep her calm. “Why don’t you fight back?” There was a harsh judgment in my voice, which I hadn’t meant to reveal. I was angry only at myself for what I was about to do and shouldn’t have been taking that out on my cousin.

  But Ben didn’t look ashamed, and I wondered if whatever had touched his brain had touched his spirit too, making him the perfect son for my uncle. “I shouldn’t have taken apart the window,” he said finally.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head at him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “You’re scared of Papa too,” he accused. “You don’t fight back either.” He pointed to the chicken.

  “I’d fight back if he ever tried to hit me.”

  “You don’t know what you’d do.”

  I sighed. “Let’s not argue, Cousin.” I gestured to the hen. “I’ll do this. Just tell me how.”

  “The feathers around the neck are thick,” he said, “thicker than you think. Where’s Anna’s hatchet?”

  “Oh,” I said, looking over my shoulder. “I left it by the tree outside the gate.”

  Ben left to retrieve it as I petted the hen’s feathers. “It’s a nice day today, little darling,” I told her. “A few clouds are hovering over the coast there.”

  “Don’t let her see it,” I told Ben as he came back, so he put the ax behind him and stood waiting for me.

  I approached the dead tree stump again and saw the two nails hammered into the top. “That’s where the neck goes?”

  Ben nodded, still hiding the ax.

  “Will she die quickly?” I asked.

  “If you do it right,” he said bluntly.

  I swallowed. “Put the hatchet by the stump.”

  Ben—in an almost comical way—kept facing me and the chicken, keeping the ax behind his leg. Then he placed it behind the stump, on the other side. “I’ll hold the hen while you do it,” he said, gesturing for me to lay her down.

  I carefully placed her on the stump, positioning the neck between the nails, as Ben put his large hands on her body, keeping her in place. He looked at me as the chicken squirmed. “One strong cut.”

  I nodded at him, quietly grabbing the ax. I closed my eyes tightly, trying to take the sting away. I couldn’t cry. I had to be able to see what I was doing.

  The hen was facing the other way, toward the sea. I positioned the ax against her neck and put everything out of my mind except her neck and the weight of the blade in my hand, not wanting to slip up.

  Still, I hesitated. But then a sense of resolve soared through me, and as if someone else more experienced was guiding me, I brought the ax down, forcefully, and as Ben advised, made one strong cut, a perfect slice really. The hen jerked about, and warm blood gushed out, onto Ben’s hands, my clothes and feet.

  Ben held the body firmly as it continued to move. I hadn’t expected her to live with her head gone. I put the ax down and stroked her soft bloody feathers, saying, “Little darling, little darling,” as I watched her life leave her.

  Once she quieted, Ben released her, and he and I stared at each other. “You are good at this, Cecilia. It usually takes me a few tries.”

  I nodded silently.

  He gestured to my face. “You have blood on your face, where you wiped away your tears.”

  I sniffed. “You’ll clean her?” I asked, rubbing my fingers on my dress.

  He nodded.

  I stood, looking down at the two pieces of her. My eyes came up when I sensed someone else was there. It was Mr. Bauer, his hands in his pockets, staring quietly at us, and the hen, and the blood.

  “I’ll clean the hatchet when I get back,” I said to Ben.

  Without waiting for his reply, I took off running.

  “I’ll clean it!” I heard him yell after me.

  My feet hit hard on the path, pound, pound, pound. When I got to the beach, while still hastening to the water, I threw off my shoes, my new dress now bloodied, my slip, my underthings, trying to push away all thoughts of that life going out of its body and me being the one to take it. The waves rushed up to
meet me, luring me in, wanting to clean the blood and death off me.

  I immersed myself under the cold water, thinking of the beauty of the books in the library and the soft feathers on the hen’s neck and feeling the horribleness of her violent death gently float away until only peace remained.

  AFTER SWIMMING VIGOROUSLY THROUGH THE COLD WATER, I WASHED THE blood out of my dress and shoes as best I could and dressed in wet clothes. The sun was out, and I shivered in the heat. I walked back to the edge of the woods, stopping as I heard a twig snap loudly. I scanned the trees around me, but nothing stirred.

  Hungry, thinking of blueberries, I took another path, meandering through the trees, marveling at the many shades of green. I headed toward the gardens of the destroyed cottage, a place we’d often retreated to on cold wintery days, a cozy house for Tess, Ben, and me to be with our grandmother, Mamie.

  I hadn’t been there since the fire and wondered if I could take seeing the place again. It was important to at least try because I didn’t like being afraid of something on my island. Fear would only give my fear more power. Maybe all these years away had only made the memories worse than they’d have been if I’d never left.

  Continuing on the path, I approached the remains of the cottage from the sea side. It was perched on a cliff overlooking the sea. A stunning drop, with waves crashing against the rock.

  Wild blueberries flourished at the edge of an overgrown garden on the other side of the cottage from where I stood. Mamie had given us baskets, and we’d fill them with berries. She’d make pie with flaky crusts and serve slices with cream. The remembered sweetness filled my mouth. But the memory didn’t make me happy; instead I felt a shock of pain.

  To get to the garden, I had to walk through the ruins, or traipse through a thick tangle of brush grown wild after the fire, or go around the area altogether.

  I raised my foot to step onto the plot of land that used to be the little house. Panic shot through me, tightening my chest.

  I backed up, smoothing down my bloodstained dress. Stone slabs—once the foundation of the cottage, now cracked and overgrown with ivy—were buried in the ground between the garden and me. My eyes stung as if the fire were still blazing in front of me. My face felt hot.

  I couldn’t do it.

  Frustrated, I plowed as rapidly as I could through the overgrown brush behind the house, scratching my arms and legs, talking to myself or to Tess all the while about how I just needed time to work up to it and to please leave me alone about it.

  When I got to the gardens, I looked at the ruins, the crumbling stone staircase and hearth that hadn’t burned, and the ivy and brush grown up around them. I sensed the presence of the dead there, particularly Tess. I looked up as if an upstairs window were still there and Tess was leaning over the sill, telling me to come in. I saw the confidence in her eyes. She was always so sure. I wondered how she could be so sure.

  But that night, the horrible night that I didn’t like to think about, I hadn’t seen her, hadn’t heard her at all. I’d stood there while the flames licked at the roof, feeling the heat on my cheeks, in denial, looking up at the window, not thinking about my grandmother, only Tess, crying out her name, telling Ben as we clutched hands, “She’s not in there. I know it. She’s not.”

  My appetite now gone, I sat down on the brick wall around the garden’s perimeter, out of the view of the eyes of Sanctuary. I wondered if it had been my grandmother’s intention to build a private place the main house couldn’t see. There wasn’t much left of her rustic cottage.

  “What happened here?”

  Startled, I turned around, almost falling off the wall. It was Mr. Bauer. He walked past me to the ruins. My heart was beating rapidly as he approached the ground where the cottage stood.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  He hesitated. “I saw you from the house. What happened to this place?”

  I studied him for a moment before answering. “A fire,” I said softly.

  He was quiet.

  “My grandmother,” I continued, “patterned her little retreat after Marie Antoinette’s hamlet, with gardens of roses, that little pond, and the Queen’s House.”

  “I think this would be the Moulin, not the Queen’s House.”

  “Moulin?” I asked.

  “It was the mill. Some say it’s the most charming of the queen’s structures.”

  I nodded.

  I shuddered as he took a step onto the slab. He wasn’t facing me and didn’t see my reaction. He continued to walk around while I watched from the garden wall. “Look,” he said, pulling something out of the overgrown brush. He gestured for me to join him.

  I hesitated for just a moment, then jumped off the wall.

  I stood at the edge of the cottage’s imprint, watching Eli examine something I couldn’t see. I didn’t want him to see me frightened of a place, so I forced myself to take a step. Sickness hit my stomach, and pain shot through my head. I couldn’t do it. I climbed back up on the brick wall and wrapped my arms around me.

  Mr. Bauer came over to me. “I’m sorry.” He hesitated, like he was trying to find words. “Did someone—?”

  “What do you have there?” I asked.

  He smiled at me, a sad quiet smile. He held up his prize.

  “A horseshoe,” I said, reaching over and running my finger along it, and feeling the nearness of Eli, our arms almost touching.

  “Good luck, my father would say,” he told me, handing it to me, as if he were giving me luck. My family needed the luck, I thought. Weren’t we all cursed?

  A rare memory of Ben, Tess, and me playing horseshoes with my father flashed in my mind. I remembered the weight of the iron in my young hands, but not much more than that. The look on my father’s face, any words he might have said to me … it was all gone.

  “What are you thinking of?” he asked.

  I shook my head, studying the horseshoe. “Nothing.”

  He grabbed some berries off a bush, popping them into his mouth. “Would you like some?” he asked, offering them to me.

  I shook my head.

  He finished the berries in his hand and sat beside me on the wall. “I’m sorry to ask so many questions,” he said softly.

  “My sister died in the fire. My grandmother too.”

  He looked up, shock on his face. He touched my hand quickly and then pulled back, as if he’d suddenly realized he’d touched me. “I’m so sorry, Cecilia.”

  We sat quietly for a few moments.

  I slid off the wall and ate some of the berries after all.

  “Tess was obsessed with sticks,” I said, glancing up at him and finding his eyes on mine. I sat back beside him, picking up the horseshoe and turning it over and over. “We had a large collection of twigs, and each of them was a person. Her stick family was huge, her children spilling out of their house of shells. She wanted to have lots of boys, she said.”

  “And your stick family?” he asked. “Who did it consist of?”

  I paused. “You can’t see the cottage from the house,” I told him quietly, watching him.

  He looked back at me silently.

  “You couldn’t have seen me from the house. Were you following me?”

  His face grew red.

  I jumped off the wall, leaving the horseshoe. “Did you see me swimming?” I asked, suddenly flustered.

  “What? No, no,” he said, shaking his head, turning an even deeper red.

  “You did, didn’t you?” I asked, horrified.

  “I was worried about you when you didn’t come back after … the chicken. I went to look for you and found you.” He looked uncomfortable. “When I realized you were taking off … your …” His voice drifted off as he grasped for words.

  I crossed my arms, feeling very exposed.

  He looked over at me. “Cecilia,” he said, “when I realized that you were going for a swim, I left immediately.”

  I pulled my arms in tighter. “Immediately,” I repeated.

&
nbsp; “Yes,” he said. “Truthfully. At once.”

  “Then how did you find me here?”

  He looked guilty. “I waited for you. I stayed in the woods—” He stopped when he saw my face. “But not near the beach. I know it sounds suspicious, but that’s the truth.”

  “You were spying on me?”

  “I wanted to make sure you were all right. I’m sorry.”

  I looked down at my blue-stained hands. “I’m going back to the house. Don’t follow me.”

  He called out as I strode off. “What if I want to go back to the house too?”

  Walking backward, I yelled at him, “Perhaps you should go for a swim!” I left him standing there.

  I READ IN MY ROOM ALL AFTERNOON, AVOIDING THE LIBRARY BECAUSE ELI was probably there. Every time I thought of him following me to the beach, I was angry all over again. It was true I’d spied on him too, but I hadn’t followed him across the island to do it.

  Ben came to the door. “Papa said to come to dinner.” He gave me a broad, simple smile. “We’re eating in the dining room tonight.”

  “The dining room?”

  “Yes, Patricia and Mary have been cleaning for hours, and Anna has been cooking. It smells so good.”

  “I don’t think I’ll come, Ben. Thank you.”

  He still stood there, waiting.

  “What is it?” I asked him.

  “Uncle said you have to. He has a special dinner planned and you’re to be there.”

  I shook my head.

  “He … he said to remind you of what he said in the library.” Ben didn’t ask what that was, but he knew his father. He could guess.

  Uncle was at the head of the carved rosewood table, dressed in dark trousers and a sweater vest, nice clothes I wouldn’t have thought he owned. Ben was to the left of him, Mr. Bauer was to the right, and a place had been set for me beside my cousin.

  “Good evening,” Mr. Bauer said to me as if he hadn’t done anything wrong. I gave him a reserved nod.

  I played with my silverware, glancing around me nervously, remembering the odd sensation I’d felt in this room last night.